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When a school is used as the cover for an elaborate plot-centric scheme, usually by a [[Big Bad]] or [[Mad Scientist]]. This is popular in horror or science fiction, where the story will centre on aliens, witchcraft or other supernatural activity secretly taking place at the school. Often involves brainwashing or forced servitude of the students, or illicit scientific testing being conducted on the students. Spoilers follow, as the True Purpose of the schools is often not known until [[The Reveal]].
The benevolent (mostly) version of this is an [[Extranormal Institute]]. Different from [[Boarding School of Horrors]], because it's not a question of the facilities being bad or the teachers or other students being
{{examples|Examples:}}▼
== Anime and Manga ==
* Variant: In ''[[
** ''[[Monster (
▲* Variant: In ''[[Death Note (Manga)|Death Note]]'', Wammy's Orphanage for genius children really exists in order to find a successor to L.
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]''. Duel Academia is basically a giant roach motel for [[Cosmic Horror
▲** ''[[Monster (Anime)|Monster]]'' does the opposite: the Kinderheim 511 orphanage {{spoiler|really exists in order to create a heartless monster to become the next Hitler. They're almost all killed when they find a kid who is exactly what they want and he leaves pretty much everyone dead.}}
▲* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]''. Duel Academia is basically a giant roach motel for [[Cosmic Horror|Cosmic Horrors]], training kids to fight said horrors in the process.
* Mugen Gakuen (Infinity College) in ''[[Sailor Moon]] S'' acts as a front for activities of the Death Busters, aliens from Tau Ceti who possess human bodies and seek to summon Master Pharaoh 90 to end the world.
* ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion]]'' reveals us during the later parts of the series that ''every single person'' in Shinji's class is a pilot candidate. It does make sense to collect all of them into one school as said school is located in the same city which the [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens]] are attacking and which houses the [[Humongous Mecha]] to fight said aliens. It even makes more sense when it's revealed that the Marduk Institute that selects pilots is a front for NERV itself who can quickly forge the necessary papers, thereby calling up new pilots on their discretion. Just watch episode 18: Unit 03 is completed and is about to be shipped to Japan. Cue NERV approaching {{spoiler|Touji}}, using his {{spoiler|sister being transferred to a better hospital}} as leverage.
** Even the [[Lighter and Softer]] ''[[Neon Genesis Evangelion: Angelic Days|Angelic Days]]'' manga uses this trope, although only six are positively identified ({{spoiler|Shinji, Asuka, Rei, Touji, Kensuke and Kaworu}}) while the rest are said to be incapable of piloting. [[Gambit Pileup|Knowing the franchise however]], that may be a lie to motivate them.
* ''Hatsukanezumi no Jikan'', or ''Hour of the Mice'', takes place in a boarding school where the students are being experimented on.
* ''[[Afterschool Charisma]]'' features a school for clones of famous historical figures; there's lots of plotting going on around them, including {{spoiler|the clones being implied to be killed if they don't display the talent of their originals. After all, they're disposable; the scientists can always make another one.}}
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* The overarching plot of ''Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E'' revolves around Courtney's high school being the cover for the base of the Dragon King, a 40s supervillain. This includes a supervillain art teacher, kidnapped students turned into brainwashed ninjas. and Courtney nearly getting her brain transferred into a giant mosquito due to her cheating on an IQ test.
==
* In Red Witch's ''[[Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
== Film ==
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* In the ''[[Spy High]]'' books, the characters attend a "school" that's really a training centre for young spies.
* Battle School and Command School in ''[[Ender's Game]]''. Although they're a bit more transparent and honest about their motives than usual.
* Humorous example: In ''Regarding the Fountain'', Dry Creek Middle School turns out to have been built {{spoiler|on top of the local natural spring that is the source of the town's famous creek}} as part of a plot by a pair of [[Corrupt Corporate Executive
* Hailsham, the British boarding school where the protagonists grow up Kazuo Ishiguro's novel ''[[Never Let Me Go]]'' is really {{spoiler|an experiment designed to prove that cloned children would grow up to be as intelligent and sensitive as regular people if raised in the right conditions}}. That wouldn't seem so bad, except the children get {{spoiler|cannibalized for organ donations}} anyway.
* Hampden College, the setting of ''[[The Secret History]]'', isn't specifically ''for''
* The ''[[Gemma Doyle]]'' trilogy.
* In ''[[
* In the ''[[
* ''[[
* ''[[The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie]]'', where a gang of pupils are secretly coached by Miss Brodie for her own purposes.
* The Gallagher School for Girls in ''[[The Gallagher Girls|I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You]]'' and ''[[The Gallagher Girls|Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy]]'' is a training ground for young female spies and the girls are constantly being thrown into life-threatening situations as "tests".
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* In [[Lois Duncan]]'s ''[[Down a Dark Hall]]'', the exclusive school Blackwood (it's really ''really'' exclusive, it only has four students counting the main character) is really for the purpose of {{spoiler|collecting kids with ESP so dead writers, artists, composers, scientists, and mathematicians can use them as vehicles to produce all the things they didn't get to when they were alive. This would be all fine and dandy--in fact, Ruth, the most intelligent of the girls, doesn't mind being used to write down mathematical theories--except that not only can people like Emily Bronte and Vermeer get through, but so can anyone else. Sandy ends up transcribing a terribly vulgar poem in French, and let's not even get into what Lynda paints. Also, Blackwood is not the first school Madame Duret opened; there was one in France and one in England. Of all the students at those schools, ''four killed themselves and the rest are mental hospitals''. And Madame Durect ''keeps trying anyway''.}}
* In ''The Grounding of Group 6'' by Julian F. Thompson, five kids are sent to what appears to be an exclusive boarding school but is really a cover to have them taken into the woods with a hitman [[Offing the Offspring|hired by the kids' parents]] to kill them all.
* The Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened in [[The Mysterious Benedict Society]], which due to some [[Fun
== Live Action TV ==
* The new series of ''[[
* ''[[The Sarah Jane Adventures]]'': "Revenge of the Slitheen" has a plethora of schools worldwide being used, via new technology blocks, by the Slitheen in a revenge plot against humankind. They are attempting to use the technology in secret rooms hidden in each of these new buildings to switch off the sun.
* ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'' had an episode where two kids discover that their boarding school is run by monsters, who brainwash the students into taking care of alien eggs.
* An episode of the new ''[[The Outer Limits]]'' involved a school where children of wealthy parents are brainwashed and controlled to create political weapons.
* The Academy that River was sent to in ''[[Firefly]]'', supposedly a school for the exceptionally gifted, but in reality a twisted government/corporate facility where she and others like her were subjected to [[Mind Rape|horrific experiments and brainwashing]] in order to [[Super Soldier|turn them into weapons]].
* In ''[[Kamen Rider Fourze]]'', Amanogawa High was ostensibly set up to encourage creativity in bright students and lead them towards an interest in space exploration. It's really a front for {{spoiler|unleashing the power of the Horoscopes and using the kids for experiments with Switches.}}
* In ''[[
== Tabletop Games ==
* In Maladomini, one of the layers of [[Fire and Brimstone Hell|The Nine Hells of Baator]] in 3.5e ''[[Dungeons
== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Deus Ex: Invisible War
* In ''[[First Encounter Assault Recon|F.E.A.R. 2 Project Origin]]'', Wade Elementary is actually a cover to test drugs on the children in order to increase their psychic potential.
* ''[[Disgaea]]'' 3 is pretty much this.
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== Web Comics ==
* The psychic academy in the webcomic ''[[
* While the titular [[
== Western Animation ==
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* Variation: In ''[[Recess]]'' [[The Movie]], the school is only used for a secret plot during summer vacation when no one is around. A mad scientist uses it to hide a tractor beam with which he plans to move the Moon in order to send North America into a state of perpetual winter. To improve the students' test scores. And thus be elected President. Or something.
** He was trying to abolish summer break.
* In the ''[[American Dragon: Jake Long]]'' episode "A Befuddled Mind", [[Evil Sorcerer|Eli Pandarus]] fronted an academy for gifted children in the hopes that one of them could solve a magical puzzle box containing powerful magic.
* The episode of ''[[Teen Titans (
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